Popular American Culture - Essay Example

Popular American Culture The United s of America is a racially and ethnically diverse country as a result of intense migration from different countries in its entire history. The American culture is primarily a western culture influenced by many other cultures like the Latin American, African, Native American and Asian culture. American culture has its own unique cultural and social characteristics like social habits, dialect, cuisine, arts, music and folklore. Most of its influence comes from the early Scottish, Irish, English and Welsh settlers during the British rule. The British rule had a formative influence on the culture especially on the legal systems, spread of the English language and other cultural inheritances. The culture has liberal and conservative elements, free expression, religious and scientific competitiveness, moral and materialist elements. Its flexibility and high symbolic nature categorize it as a mythic identity (Berman 18). In spite of some consistent ideological principles such as egalitarianism and freedom in democracy, American culture has a variety of expressions owing to its demographic diversity and geographical scale. The extent of the culture has resulted in many cohesive but distinctive social subcultures within the United States. This paper focuses on the various characteristics of different forms of American culture. SPORT American sport has become more than competitions with rules played on rinks, fields or diamonds. The current outset of sport is more than that struggle to reach the finish line, or a ball moving among athletes. What American sport has produced is more than the hero worship of winners and other usual trappings of sports that affect other societal aspects. Modern American sport has produced incredible dialogue about sports. The interest of American sport cuts across dividing lines of gender, ethnicity, income, age and geography. The world of American sport gives everyone a sense of belonging and shared language. As a result, this gives people extraordinary insights into American culture. Spectator sports attract large audiences since on the onset of the 1920s. Sports provide America with the people’s yearning for an increasingly impersonal practical society. The likes of Jack Dempsey became national idols for being winners. The focus was on those individuals whose talents flourished and made them appear larger than life. American football, which is considered the most popular sport in the United States, attracts more television viewers that any other spectator sport (Berman 45). The most professional American football league that is popular is the National Football League. It consists of 32 members, and its season lasts from September to December. The playoffs end in January and February with playoffs and the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl, which is the championship game, is the highest rated television show with over 100 million viewers per year. Baseball also draws large crowds. It is the oldest of the main American sports. Although it is no longer a popular sport, most people still refer to it as the national sport. Major baseball teams play almost every day unlike the professional levels of other popular sports. Soccer is rated the third sport that is most widely played in America (Berman 54). This has been a recent addition to American pastime, and it has gained popularity in the better half of the 20th century. Among other sports are ice hockey, tennis, boxing, golf and horse racing that bring so many people into their domain. American sport captivates many and increases duties and anxieties that go deeper than other industries. American sport is a way in which great relationships are constructed for generations who grow up following in similar footsteps. It is a haven from other societal struggles and an oasis of verifiable truth in the desert of modern life. All these perceptions give people a clue on the uniqueness of American culture. The modernity of American culture is defined by equality. CUISINE Another trendy American culture is the cuisine. The American cuisine is exceptionally diverse due to the vastness of the American continent. The continent has a relatively large population with a large number of immigrant and native influences. Americans prefer coffee to tea, and research shows that half of the adult population prefers drinking at least one cup daily. During the 1990s, there was an obesity epidemic in the US largely caused by the high calorie soft drinks, milk and fast foods (Berman 66). Traditional American cuisine is characterized by ingredients like potatoes, turkey, corn, maple syrup and white-tailed deer venison. These were native foods used by the early European settlers and American Indians. The conventional American cuisine is similar to those in other western nations. Unique American culinary arts comprise of potato chips, chocolate chip cookies, slow cooked beef barbecue and pork, cotton candy and crab cakes. Different regions of the USA have different cuisines and cooking styles. An example is soul food, which was developed by African slaves, and is popular among most of the American Americans. In the state of Louisiana, there is the popular Creole and Cajun cuisine that was influenced by Haitian, French and Acadian cooking. These include Jambalaya, Crawfish Etouffee and seafood among others. Other regional cuisines are the Tex-Mex and Pennsylvania Dutch. FASHION The fashion and clothing are quite diverse and informal in the USA. Their clothing style reflects the American culture. Most popular are the boots, cowboy hats and leather motorcycle jackets. Also, dominant are the popular Levi jeans that were made by Levi Strauss who was a German immigrant living in San Francisco. When the blue Levi jeans were first introduced, they were mostly worn as work clothes. However, more than a hundred years later, Levi jeans are worn throughout the world as both formal and casual wear (Berman 89). This was one of the most prominent American contributions into the worldwide fashion world.Famous designer labels like Calvin Klein, Victoria Secret and Ralph Lauren also reflect the dominance of the American culture in professional clothing world. Another typical culture in American fashion is wearing of t-shirts. T-shirts can be white, plain, colored or printed with many messages and logos. They are the most worn clothing by more than half of the Americans. Fashion in the US is consistent with those of the ancient western countries. Western countries are known to be more informal in their dress code than the eastern nations. The American clothing culture is influenced by ethnicity, location or venue among others. Americans belonging to ethnic groups like those of Scottish descent and Native Americans wear clothing that reflects their ethnic origin on certain occasions. The United States leads some trends in the history of Western fashion. Unique American cultures in fashion include the western wear, nudism, piercing, full body tattoos and cross-dressing. MUSIC American music reflects the country’s ethnic population through its many styles. The most renowned genres of American music are blues, hip hop, rock and roll, blues, pop, jazz and techno. Since the music is heard worldwide, American audience has gained a large global audience. The uniqueness of American music comes from the use of asymmetrical rhythms, syncopation and irregular melodies (Berman 78). Other distinct features in American music are the call and response formats that strengthen the undemanding technique. Rap music is also a typical American culture especially among African Americans. The aggressive lyrics and intense rhythms have made rap music a challenging fixture on the American cultural model, from its conception from hip hop. With all these unique genres, American music is a recurrent work in progress. Therefore, as a significant super power in the world, the United States has influenced many other cultures in different countries. However, as most of the other nations become interdependent and interconnected, the general American culture heads towards sociocultural organization and multiculturalism. Works Cited Berman, Morris. The Twilight of American Culture. Chicago: Norton Publishers, 2001. Read More